A Sun User’s Guide

209 Pages·1992·16.616 MB·English

by  Peter Hurley, John Mariani, Nick Nei, Jim Rudolf (auth.), David England (eds.)

Macmillan Computer Science Series
Consulting Editor: Professor F.H. Sumner, University of Manchester
A. AbdelJatif, J. Le Bihan and M. Limame, Orade - A user's guide
S. T. Allworth and R. N. Zobel, Introduction to Real-time Software Design, second edition
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lan O. AngelJ and Gareth Griffith, High-resolution Computer Graphics Using FORTRAN 77
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Alan Bradley, Peripherals for Computer Systems
G. R. Brookes and A. J. Stewart, Introduction to occam 2 on the Transputer
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Robert Cole, Computer Communications, second edition
E. Davalo and P. Nai'm, Neural Networks
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Volume Il
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P. Jaulent, L. Baticle and P. Pillot, 68020-30 Microprocessors and their Coprocessors
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continued overleaf
E. J. Redfern, Introduction to Pascal for Computational Mathematics
Gordon Reece, Microcomputer Modelling by Finite Differences
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Barry Thomas, A PostScript Cookbook
A User's Guide
SUD
David England (Editor)
Peter Hurley
John Mariani
Nick Nei
Jim Rudolf
Second Edition
M
MACMILLAN
© D. England, P.N. Hurley, J.A. Mariani, N. Nei, J.B. Rudolf 1992
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting
Iimited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
90 Tottenham Court Road, London WC1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be Iiable to criminal prosecution and
ci viI claims for damages.
First edition 1987
Second edition 1992
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-56044-0 ISBN 978-1-349-12617-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12617-0
A catalogue re cord for this book is available
from the British Library.
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
1 An Introduction to OpenW indows 1
Desktop metaphor - starting OpenWindows - WorkSpace menu
- frame menu - shelltool - textedit - file manager - customising
2 SunOS 20
Files and directories - redirection - other users - C Shell
- UNIX and windows - working in a network
3 XView I 45
Object heirarchy - creating windows - creating panel items
- interacting with panels - icons and cursors
4 XView II 64
Canvas windows - Xlib output - canvas events - window
damage - scrollbars - menus
5 Introduction to PostScript 84
Introduction - syntax - object types - graphics and text
- variables and control flow - stacks - advanced graphics
6 Introduction to NeWS 107
Introduction - window systems - extensions to PostScript
- canvases - processes - events - object-oriented features
- toolkits
vi A Sun User' s Guide
7 Administration of Workstations 126
Disks and file systems - network services - installing UNIX
- adding user accounts - tape backups - managing disk space
8 Networking 153
Sockets - Transport Layer Interface (TU)
9 Software Development on the Sun 179
sees -
Software development cycle - make - dbxtool
- alternative debugging strategy
Index 196
Preface
High-perfonnance, high-resolution graphics workstations have been available
for over ten years in specialist areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Com
puter Aided Design. However, the recent developments in powerful 16 and 32
bit microprocessors have led to the development of more general purpose
machines. The Sun range of workstations is one example of this trend. These
machines are bringing powerful computers out of the traditional machine
room and into the offices of researchers and software developers.
Workstations provide new opportunities in addition to providing the indivi
dual user with more computing power. These opportunities require new skills.
Window management can provide more "user-friendly" interfaces but requires
knowledge of human-computer interaction. High-speed networking allows data
distribution and rapid communication. It is hoped this book will help the user
to realise the possibilities presented by Sun workstations.
About this book
A Sun User' s Guide aims to be general and practical, being based on the
authors' own experiences. As weil as concentrating on the strengths of the
Sun workstation, such as window management, graphics and networking, we
also introduce machine administration which the general user may not have
met before. SunOS is introduced and references to introductory UNIX books
provided. It is expected that the reader will have had some exposure to C
language programming and again introductory texts are recommended. Most
of the programming-based chapters include some complete C programs which
the reader can enter and compile. It is also assumed that the reader will have
had some previous exposure to personal computers and will know how to use
a keyboard and how to type in commands.
A Sun Users Guide is not meant to be read sequentially. It is possible to
dip into a chapter of particular interest without reading the whole book. How
ever some chapters are naturally linked, such as Chapter 1 on using windows
and Chapter 3 on writing window-based programs. The reader should note that
this book is based on release 4.1 of Sun software.
Chapter 1, An introduction to OpenWindows, aims to teach the basics of
using window and mouse-based tools. Not every possible tool is introduced.
Instead the aim is to describe the common elements of all tools. Chapter 2,
SunOS, introduces the SunOS operating system with many examples and par
ticular references to the use of windows and networking. Chapters 3 and 4
introduce programming in the XView toolkit showing how window based pro
grams can be constructed. Chapter 3 shows how Frames and Panels can be
constructed, while Chapter 4 considers the lower, and more flexible, Canvas
object of XView. Chapter 5 then looks at interactive PostScript imaging facili
ties. Chapter 6 describes the NeWS windowing system. NeWS is based on
viii A Sun User's Guide
PostScript and provides an alternative, though complementary model to
XView for building interactive, graphics applications. In Chapter 7 machine
administration is introduced and includes topics such as tape backups and
adding users to UNIX. Networking is one of the Sun's strengths and Chapter
8 looks at the support available. Finally Chapter 9 looks at the support avail
able for software development on Sun Workstations.
We have endeavoured to remove any technical and typographical errors
and are grateful to the various reviewers who have helped us in this task. Any
errors which still remain are the responsibility of the authors. We would be
grateful if readers could bring them to the attention of the editor or publisher
for correction. This book was produced on various Sun SparcStations and a
Sun laserwriter using ptroff, plus the occasional Macintosh diagrarn.
Acknowledgements
Much of the experience on which this book is based was gained on research
projects supported by the Science and Engineering Research Council and the
Alvey Directorate of Great Britain. The directory browser software was
developed as part of the Alvey ECLIPSE Software Engineering project for an
earlier release of Sun Windows. We would like to thank Susan Armitage,
Andrew Howes, David Hutchison, Peter Sawyer, Stuart Borthwick, lan Som
merville, Catherine Taylor and Michael Twidale for their help with the first
edition. The second edition contains additional material from staff at Glasgow
University and the Turing Institute. We would like to thank Naveed Khan,
David Coffield and Gilbert Cockton for their feedback on the second edition.
The following trademarks are referred to in this book and the authors ack
nowledge the rights of the trademark owners to their marks and to any other
intellectual property rights vested in them or arising out of or in connection
with their marks. Every effort has been made to make the list complete and
any accidental omission is not intended to imply any claim to the use of any
third party trademark referred to in this book.
Sun Logo, Sun Microsystems, NeWS and NFS are registered trademarks, and
SunOS, SunView, OpenWindows, XView and Sun 4 are trademarks of Sun
Microsystems, Incorporated. OPEN LOOK and UNIX are registered trade
marks of UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. PostScript is the registered trade
mark of Adobe Inc.
David England, Glasgow, 1992
1 An Introduction to Open Windows
1.1. Introduction
Developments in microelectronics over the last 10 to 15 years have led to
major changes in the ways people work with computers. More powerful
microprocessors and cheaper memory chips have led to personal workstations
which have moved computing out of the traditional machine room and into
the user's office. Developments in computer networks have also assisted the
redistribution of computing power further into the hands of the users. And the
introduction of high resolution displays, with associated pointing devices, has
provided new opportunities for improving the interface between user and
machine. In the jargon of Information Science, graphical workstations are able
to offer more eycles and a greater bandwidth of information communication,
between user and machine, than was previously possible.
1.2. Interface metaphors
So the new machines, like Sun workstations, offer the possibility of
communicating rich and complex information in a comprehensible way to the
user. How is this achieved in practice? One of the most popular methods,
adopted by many office personal computers, is to offer a desktop metaphor. In
this approach, computer concepts like files, directories of files and command
names, are represented on the screen as objects that users are familiar with in
their everyday work. So the screen becomes an electronic desktop which has
ieons on it which represent folders. The user can point at folders and move
them about, with the mouse pointing device, just as he or she would organise
their own desktop. Folder icons can be opened to windows so the user can
view their contents, which will again be represented as icons. When a folder
is no longer required it can be c10sed back to its icon or moved into a trash
can icon for disposal, or we may move one folder on top of another, just as
we shuffte pieces of paper on a desk. The mouse can also be used to point at
labels or areas of the screen which provide the user with a pop-up menu of
choices. With menus, the user can perform some action on a previously
selected folder window or icon, such as opening or c10sing a folder, or
changing the way a folder displays its contents.
J